1. Field
Example embodiments relate to an image process, and more particularly, to an apparatus adjusting an auto white balance that extracts a grey area from an input image, and performs white balancing using image information of an effective area selected from the grey area based on a color temperature and luminance.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, when an image of an object is taken by an imaging device, such as a digital camera, a digital video camera, and the like, an appearance of a color of the taken image may differ depending on the condition of a variety of light sources, such as a white lamp, a fluorescent lamp, sunlight, and the like. The imaging device may consider RGB components included in light sources having different color temperatures, and thereby may reproduce white including blue when a color temperature of the light source is high, and reproduce white including red when the color temperature of the light source is low. Here, white is an area having a greatest luminance from a grey area.
Accordingly, when the color temperature is changed by the light source, there is a need to adjust white balance to enable grey to be seen as grey. To precisely adjust the white balance, the grey area that is a standard for the adjustment, is required to be precisely detected.
In this instance, when the white balance is adjusted using all data of the grey area, an error of predicting a light source may occur since the grey area includes data of a real light source and also data of a color area adjacent to the light source. Also, an error in predicting a light source may occur due to a color of a dominant object.
Accordingly, a method of extracting a grey area affected by the real light source to precisely adjust the white balance is required.